It is the opposite of refining energy. Electrical energy is steak, what leaves the datacenter is heat, the lowest form of energy that we might still have a use for in that concentration (but most likely we are just dumping it in the atmosphere).

Refining is taking a lower quality energy source and turning it into a higher quality one.

What you could argue is that it adds value to bits. But the bits themselves, their state is what matters, not the energy that transports them.

I think you're pushing the metaphor a bit far, but the parallel was to something like ore.

A power plant "mines" electron, which the data center then refines into words. or whatever. The point is that energy is the raw material that flows into data centers.